Overnight Open Thread

This one chart is damning of our entire public education system and ought to be reason enough to disband all teachers' unions.

It shows the average cost to educate a kid from kindergarten through 12th grade in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars. In 1970 each child's education cost about $40,000. Today it's nearly $160,000 - nearly four times as much! And if you look at the test scores over that period, they haven't budged at all. So we're paying 4 times as much in constant dollars and getting jack shit for it. In even a poorly run company that would be enough to get people fired and auditors looking for criminal fraud.

And it's not like children's brains are fundamentally different now or there's a lot more material to learn - basic math is still basic math and reading is still reading. Which means that teaching might be the only profession in the world that has become less efficient over the last four decades.

And if you're wondering where all the money went, well this little tidbit will give you a clue: former Niles Township, IL school superintendent Neil Codell will receive $26 million dollars in retirement checks from the Illinois teacher pension plan which he will qualify for after just 34 years of work. Which means he'll be getting nearly a $1 million dollars a year in his pension. Now multiply that by every school district and you start to see why some states are facing bankruptcy.

So the next time there's a new ballot initiative to increase educational spending to "help the children", remember this chart and vote no. And don't feel a shred of guilt about it. Because the only people who are going to suffer are the Neil Codells of the world.

Act II: 10 People Who Switched Careers After 50 (and Thrived)
Sometimes there are second acts in life. Colonel Sanders, Ray Kroc, and Ronald Reagan didn't start their 'real' careers until they were in their 50's. And Rodney Dangerfield was an aluminum siding salesman until his 40's. But didn't get any respect so he moved into comedy.

California’s fiscal hole reportedly is now so large that the state would have to free 168,000 prison inmates and permanently close 240 university and community college campuses to balance its budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

“We are on the verge of system failure,” Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, told the Globe and Mail.

At this point there's probably no way they can make their budget even if they drastically increase taxes and make huge cuts - so either the Feds bail them out or it's bankruptcy. As much as it might hurt me personally, I think a quicker crash and burn is better for the state in the long run. Otherwise it'll just become a permanent Detroit with palm trees.

Still, the impatience of the new globalized Judenhass is now palpable. I used to think that, when Iran got the bomb, it wouldn’t use it. I wouldn’t take that bet now. The new anti-Semitism is a Euro-Islamic fusion so universal, so irrational and so fevered that it’s foolish to assume any limits.

Rent A White Guy
So the hot thing among Chinese companies is to hire random white guys to pretend to be visiting businessmen. This makes the Chinese company look successful and appear connected with the West. Some of the rental white guys are being paid $1000 a week just to hang around and look important. So if you're a white dude and clean up well, this could be the opportunity to make some easy money.